HOMOSEXUAL OFFENDERS VS. CHILDREN: ANIMAL CONTACTS
Nearly one quarter of the homosexual offenders vs. children sometime in their postpubertal lives had sexual contact with an animal. This is the second largest proportion recorded. While for other tripartite groups of sex offenders these proportions vary widely, it is worth noting that the homosexual offenders are not thus scattered but form a quite cohesive unit occupying second, third, and fourth places in the rank-order.
In age-specific incidence the homosexual offenders vs. children begin at a moderate level: 10 per cent had animal contact between puberty and age fifteen. Thereafter they rise to third rank in age-period 16-20 (9 per cent), tie for the first rank in age-period 21-25 (7 per cent), and occupy undisputed first rank in age-period 26-30 with 5 per cent. These offenders, one will recall, ranked first among those with dreams of animal contact and fourth in masturbatory fantasy of this activity; the figures are small in absolute terms, but indicate an above-average interest in sexual activity with animals. Since the group is not particularly rural in background and the other homosexual offenders are even less so—in fact, they are among our most urban groups—one must obviously look elsewhere for an explanation for the unusual incidence of animal contact.
We are of the opinion that self-masturbation and sexual contact with animals are basically very similar; one may legitimately think of animal contact not as something unique and separate, but as a form of self-masturbation—the human using the animal merely as a masturbatory device. Since the homosexual offenders are characterized by their great emphasis on masturbation, it may well be that their relatively high incidence of animal contact experience is simply the result. This hypothesis is strengthened by the fact that the heterosexual aggressors vs. minors, who have the highest incidence (33 per cent) of animal contact, also display an uncommon amount of self-masturbation.
While, as is usual, most of the animal contact occurs between ten and twenty, the homosexual offenders and particularly the homosexual offenders vs. children tend to continue it later in life. This tendency cannot be shrugged off by saying that since our homosexual-offender sample is larger than our other sex-offender samples one could expect to find more cases of rare activity, for our two other large sample groups, the prison and the control, do not contain anyone who had animal contact beyond age thirty-five. Indeed, in the prison group there was no animal contact beyond age twenty-five.
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